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SAN FRANCISCO—A new report card issued today by Rainforest Action Network and the Sierra Club ranks ten of the world’s largest banks on their financing of mountaintop removal coal mining projects. Since 2010, the report card found that the top three financiers of the destructive mining practice are PNC, Citi, and UBS. Deutsche Bank and GE Capital received failing grades for having no policy in place to guide funding of mining companies. Credit Suisse and Wells Fargo were found to have the strongest policies in the sector.

SAN FRANCISCO-Today a court in Lago Agrio, Ecuador has ruled in favor of the residents of Ecuador's Amazon region who have spent the last 18 years seeking damages for crude oil pollution. Chevron inherited the suit when it bought Texaco in 2001, and has denied the allegations of environmental damage.

San Francisco—Today Rainforest Action Network (RAN) released The Principle Matter: Banks, Climate & The Carbon Principles, a new report assessing the impact of the much-lauded 2008 Carbon Principles signed by six of the country’s leading banks. In reviewing bank investment from January 2008 to June of 2010, the report found that there is no evidence that the Carbon Principles stopped or slowed financing to carbon-intensive projects. In addition, the report found that there is no evidence that the Carbon Principles spurred investment in clean energy in greater levels.

One ad features a smiling elderly indigenous man wearing a bandana, with the words "OIL COMPANIES SHOULD CLEAN UP THEIR MESSES," along with a red stamp the reads "We Agree"--followed by the signatures of Chevron higher-ups. The ad is an apparent reference to a years-long lawsuit in Ecuador, where Chevron is accused of being responsible for $27 billion of oil pollution clean-up costs.

As Big Oil struggles to repair its image in the wake of the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Chevron Corp. is responding head-on to industry critics.

The company's new ads, designed to evoke anti-industry posters, feature slogans such as "Oil companies should put their profits to good use" and "It's time oil companies get behind renewable energy." Stamped in red are the words, "We agree."

SAN FRANCISCO – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regional administrator, Shawn Garvin, has recommended that his agency veto the Clean Water Act permit for the Spruce No. 1 Mine in Logan County, West Virginia. The Spruce mine is one of the largest mountaintop removal mines ever proposed in Central Appalachia, and would result in the destruction of 2,278 acres of temperate rainforest and the burying of 7.5 miles of streams in the Spruce Fork sub-watershed.

Following is a statement by Amanda Starbuck of the Rainforest Action Network (RAN):